


Made for Love

by elo_elo



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Anal Sex, Angst, Developing Relationship, Double Penetration, F/M, Face-Fucking, Hair-pulling, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Minor Drug Use, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Older Man/Younger Woman, Oral Sex, Plot but with a lot of porn, Possessive Negan (Walking Dead), Protective Negan (Walking Dead), Rough Sex, Season 9/10 vibes, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Toys, Slow-ish burn, Smut, Sort Of, Spit As Lube, Vaginal Sex, but also kind of tender, but like nicer, eventually, like a lot, non-con is not with Negan, two fucked up people falling in love, you get it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elo_elo/pseuds/elo_elo
Summary: Long, sunny days and crystalline nights. Palms swaying over sandy beaches. All the ripe potential of summer.And graduate student Heather Temple is too in her own head to enjoy any of it. A single drunken mistake has left her reeling and her newly laid-off best friend/roommate is too busy throwing parties in their crumbling apartment to notice. She’s barreling toward a breakdown, just trying to keep her head above water, and when a surly new neighbor moves in next door, Heather’s not sure things could get much worse. But he, as it turns out, might be just what she needs.~updates on hold for some plot restructuring~
Relationships: Negan (Walking Dead)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first foray into the Walking Dead fandom and a story I’ve been kicking around in my head for a long time. I hope you enjoy :).

The walk helps. Some. Her legs went numb halfway through the talk. They’re still a little numb. Her fingers too, from where she’d tucked them under her thighs to keep from fidgeting. She's been tearing up her nails lately, doing a number on her cuticles. Heather rubs at her eyes as she heads down the sidewalk. It always feels, when she leaves these long talks, a little like waking up. Dozey, sort of buoyant. The feeling evaporates when she feels her phone buzz in her bag. The pleasant late afternoon warmth too hot on her skin. She knows, without looking, that it’s Mark, but her stomach still turns a little when she sees his number. _Whered u go?_ She clicks her phone off and slides it back into her bag.

It’s a beautiful day anyway. Too nice to think about shit like that, to deal with any kind of shit like that. Bright. Not a cloud in the sky. A cool, clean 75. Every so often, a salt-clipped breeze will drift across the sidewalk, rustling the palms she passes. But the sun reflecting off the concrete hurts her eyes, makes the headache that’s been building since that morning start to pound in her temples. Heather’s walked this far because she didn’t want to get caught waiting for the bus by the University. Didn’t want to risk running into someone she knows. She’s been up all night. Bummed half a ritalin from a friend in Art History around midnight and watched the sun rise from the library’s window, most of her books still unopened. She couldn’t make academic small talk right now if she tried. But her night, and the brutally long day that followed it, is catching up with her with each step she takes. And as Holmby Hills’ manicured lawns start to fade into cracked concrete and parched grass, Heather slows. Her shoulder twinges where the strap of her backpack has started to dig in. She opens uber on her phone, then immediately closes it. It’ll be at least twenty bucks to get home, probably more with the way traffic has already slowed to a crawl on the road beside her. And she really doesn’t have that kind of money. Heather opens up her map. There’s a bus stop half a mile down the road. If she’s lucky, the 2 won’t be late.

She isn’t lucky. It’s evening by the time Heather steps off the bus outside her apartment complex. The livid pink of the setting sun flush to the horizon, columns of golden light stretching across the asphalt. It makes the painted stucco of her building look cotton candy pink. A neon fluorescence that fits it. The building used to be a motel, built back in the fifties, those smooth, squat lines, a big rectangle. It was bought out by some developer in the early aughts. He didn’t do much with it besides jack up the rent. The rusted out fence creaks in the breeze. A little nippy now that the sun is sinking in the sky. But the air’s still warm. Almost the end of the semester, almost summer. It should be more of a relief than it is. 

Mr. Rudolph is out floating in the pool across the parking lot when Heather makes her way past. His white hair a shock against his carameled, creped skin. She can barely see his face over the round swell of his gut, just a pair of mirrored sunglasses bobbing up and down, catching the sun. He’s always out there. Even in January when the temperatures dip into the forties. Just floating in the pool. Heather’s convinced he came with the motel. Jokes sometimes, when friends ask, that he’s some kind of criminal on the lam. Nobody seems to know his first name. An idea that, right about now, has a certain appeal.

He raises his beer, a little wave. And Heather waves back. The lone palm tree planted beside the pool shivers in the breeze. It looks older than the building, fronds drooping low toward the green film floating broken over the water. She’d bet the water’s warm, baking in the sun all day, and for one hazy moment, she imagines wading into it, dropping down to the bottom. She imagines Rudolph’s innertube drifting overhead, imagines her lungs popping like balloons. _Jesus._ Heather kneads at her eyes with the heels of her hands. _Jesus fucking Christ._ Her phone vibrates again. She opens it without thinking. _Did u leave?_

Anita’s got all the windows open, got a candle going on the kitchen table. Linen scented. Heather bought it from a bargain bin at Goodwill, god, forever ago now. She can only barely smell it over the green chili bubbling on the stove though. A weird mash of scents. Zingy, bright, clean, sweet. About time someone cleaned out the freezer, Heather thinks, shutting the door with her hip. The two of them picked up a few pounds of the roasted hatch she's cooking now from a roadside stand last year. Spent a whole afternoon cleaning them to freeze, smoking joints out in the buildings sun-scorched hallway. A summer that had been so dreamy and so easy it feels like a different lifetime now. Heather drops her bag on the chipped terracotta tile in the entryway and heads toward the kitchen counter. The only light in the front of the apartment is coming in through the windows and so it shifts, casting shadows that swarm, drift. Golden light that catches motes of dust as they hover still in the air. 

Heather settles heavily on the counter, resting on her forearms. The day barrels back into her. The week. She could fall asleep right here. Anita has her phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder. She’s rooting around in the fridge, raises one hand over her shoulder in silent greeting. Heather’s own phone clatters against the linoleum as it vibrates. _Seriously, where are you?_ Mark’s dropped the chirpy chatspeak. A bad sign. Her head throbs. _The talk just got out. Are you still in Bunche?_ Anita stands, heading over to Heather, laughing into the phone. Their shitty electric range is practically a furnace, the kitchen sweltering. Anita’s dressed only in a pair of cut-offs and a cotton bra but her skin still glistens, beads of sweat rolling down her chest. Heather’s phone buzzes again. _Are you even still on campus?_ Heather frowns, Anita pauses. She raises a single pierced eyebrow. Heather just shrugs. Anita presses her phone to her chest and mouths, “you good?”

Heather brushes her hair behind her ears. Unruly lately. Waves that tangle around her knuckles, knot. “Peachy.” Anita makes a face at her, but puts the phone back to her ear, turns to stir the bubbling pot. Heather turns her own attention back to her phone. She opens twitter on impulse, is typing his name before she even realizes she’s doing it. A well-worn digital groove. His picture is the same one on the department website. A tree-lined background, out of focus. His dark-rimmed glasses somehow not catching glare. The photo’s from the chest up, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. She remembers how he’d fumbled with them. He’s handsome. Everyone thinks so. Heather less so now. He’s smirking in the picture, can’t even keep it off his face for an official photo. She scrolls down. Anita bangs around in the cabinets.

 _Mark Elan  
_ _@markelanucla  
_ _taking history/making history  
_ _retweet =/=endorsement  
_ _Prof of European History @UCLA_

He’s got more than 15,000 followers now, but Heather would know that without looking. That had been his opener last week. Sauntering over at the department's spring reception, flushed from the beer he'd been drinking. The newest addition to her committee. A critical outside perspective, her advisor had insisted. _I don’t think we’ve properly met._ Passing each other in the hallway. Small talk at the big conferences. A short, but engaging chat during a coffee break at a colloquium six months ago. He'd read her first chapter, returned it with curt edits that implied he'd just skimmed. Nothing like the way he was approaching then, almost sheepish grin on his face. He’d handed her a beer. She’d drank it so fast her head swam. Her head is swimming still. His newest article for _Jacobin_ is the pinned tweet. “Fascism in the digital age: lessons from Unitalia.” _Douchebag._ His latest tweet is about Trump. A regurgitated hot take gussied up with obscure academic jargon. 350 likes. Her phone vibrates in her hand. _Heather?_

“Yo.” Heather nearly jumps out of her skin. Anita’s off the phone now, brandishing a wooden spoon in Heather’s direction. Her cropped curls are stuck to her cheekbones, she brushes them back then waves the spoon aimlessly. “You eat at your department whatever?”

“Nah. They didn’t have food.” They did, actually. The usual limp cheese and vegetable assortment. Over brewed coffee. Grocery store pastry. She’d come late and left early. Her phone buzzes again. _Heather? Seriously?_

Anita tsks. “Fucked up that they don’t even feed you at that boring shit.” She nods back toward the stove. “Chili should be done in an hour if you want some. I’ve got some people coming later.”

Heather glowers up at her. “How many people?”

Anita waves her off. Heather’s phone vibrates again. _Heather?_ She swallows hard, types a quick response. _Left early. Had some errands to run._ She grimaces, not sure why she even felt the need to respond. Except that he’s on her committee now, except that, when she tries to cut through the liquored haze of her memories of that night she’s sure, draped in the tangle of his bedsheets, she heard the quick click of a camera. “Hey!” Anita snaps her fingers.

Heather jumps. “Jesus!”

“Where do you even go in that big head of yours?” Anita brushes some curls from her forehead, grins. “If you’re going back out later, you wanna pick up some chips and a case of modelo?”

“Yeah, sure.” Another buzz. :) The emojis really get to her. Childish. Gross. “I don’t know when I’m heading back out, though.”

“No worries.” Anita’s turned back to the fridge now, rummaging through the crisper. She scrounges up a lime, whirls around. Tosses it, then catches it. “When are you gonna get your car fixed anyway? You must be so sick of schlepping it on the bus.”

Her car. _Fuck._ A 2005 Volvo Heather paid cash for. Pale sage. Just a few dings. A hairline crack in the windshield. Sturdy. Reliable. Collecting dust and guano in the back parking lot now. A dark, glossy pool of oil spreading out from underneath it. Hasn’t run in a month. “I get paid in three weeks,” she says vaguely. Her phone vibrates against her palm. _I want to see you again. Outside the university._

"Yeah, well." Anita drifts off. Heather pulls her bag back over her shoulder, heads down the hall. 

She leaves her windows open, lets her cotton curtains blow softly in. Little ghosts. The air is still warm. It smells like cut grass. Someone’s grilling down the street. The sound of laughter drifts into the quiet of her bedroom. She can feel the bass from a stereo in the apartment below her but can’t hear the melody. Anita bangs around in the kitchen. It's too much. Sensory overload. Maybe the ritalin isn't totally out of her system. 

Heather pulls her laptop from her bag, settling cross-legged down onto her rug. She chews at her thumbnail while it boots up. Christ, she’s got about a hundred new emails. Couldn’t stomach checking before now. Can't remember when she last checked. There’s one from her advisor. From two days ago. 

_From: Mary Baum <mbaums@humnet.ucla.edu>_  
 _To: Heather Temple <_ _[htemple@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu) _ _>  
_ _Subject: Update?_

_Hi Heather,_

_Been about a week since we last talked. Do you have those chapter revisions for me? I’d like to get a clearer sense of where you’re at._

_-M_

Heather doesn’t reply. Just keeps scrolling. There’s a couple emails from her students. Questions that are all on the syllabus if they’d just read it. A reminder for a colloquium meeting. Heather’s temples throb. She shuts the laptop, sliding it across the floor away from her. Then, hesitating, slides it back. She opens the webcam. Her body blinks into view. The apartment’s shit in pretty much every way except for its windows. Big, mission style windows that let light pour into the rooms. It pours over her now. Molten over her bare legs, sundress hiked up to her hips. She cocks her head, then slips the dress over her head. There’s a hickey above her left nipple, dark and sore even though that night was nearly a week ago. She feels a little sick when she looks at it, a little panicky. She tries to shake the feeling off, runs her hand down her belly, the hollows of her hips, across her thighs. The sun wanes and shifts. Her hair’s unruly, dark circles under her eyes. She needs to sleep. To take a whole day and just sleep but her heart is thumping like a jackrabbit, that sense of dread buzzing just under her skin. Her phone vibrates. _I want to talk to you._ Heather angles her laptop so her head disappears from the screen. A headless body, a fuckable piece of meat. It looks foreign to her like this. Feels animal. Who knows what it might do next. She certainly fucking doesn’t. Not anymore. The vibration rattles her knees where they touch the tile. _You looked so hot today._ She shuts her laptop, yanks a pair of rumpled shorts up her legs, roots around for a t-shirt. There’s a stack of books at the end of her bed that she needs to get through. Sooner rather than later. Just the idea of it makes her head feel heavy. The intercom buzzes and Heather hears Anita pad across the tile, hears laughter and talking, hears someone put music on. Another buzz. _There are so many things I want to do to you._

It’s night when Heather heads down to the mailroom. A navy darkness that pools in the corners of the apartment’s hallway. Stars blotted out by the city. Light pollution. She’s always found the phrase strangely appealing. A big fuck you to the universe. She used to sleep with the lights on. Still does sometimes. Moths rattle in the fluorescence by the stairs. Heather scraps her hair off her shoulders, ties it up loosely at the nape of her neck. She’d managed a couple of hours of sleep but woke up feeling foggier and shittier than before. Anita’s friends were, at least, nowhere to be seen. Probably headed out to the bars a few blocks down the street. An empty case of Natty Lite on the kitchen table the only sign they’d been there at all.

Heather heads down the stairs, fingers trailing down the cool stucco as she goes. Her fingertips rolling over each bump, bump, bump. Someone’s playing music. From their car if the volume's any indication. The bass rattles through the building, getting louder when she makes it to the little enclave where the wall of mailboxes is. She fumbles a little with her key, has to really yank to pry open the rusted door. There’s nothing in the box and she didn’t expect there to be. She’d just wanted to stretch her legs, to force herself to get away from her phone. “Turn that shit down, Christ!” The voice echoes. 

Heather jumps, one hand on her chest. “Goddamn it,” she hisses. She leans a little back, toward the arch that opens up to the parking lot, hoping to catch sight of the source of the noise.

She doesn’t have to look far. A man appears in the enclave. “Fucking kids.” He mutters. There’s a gruff twang to his voice, a little soft southern. It matches him. Older guy. Maybe mid-fifties, tall and wiry, a sort of jaunty grace as he backs into the room. His leather jacket catches the fluorescence by the mailboxes, and he curses as he runs a long-fingered hand over his hair. More salt than pepper, an almost gunmetal grey, spots of black. The air seems to warp around him as he moves, like he's sucking out all the energy in the room. An easy charisma that puts her immediately on edge. “Or at least get some goddamn taste!” He yells out into the parking lot. Whoever it is, they just turn the music up. “Jesus Christ, what a shithole.” He turns on his heel then freezes. There's a beat of slow silence between them before he moves again. He plops the toothpick he'd been holding between his teeth, one side of his mouth quirking briefly up. Heather takes a reflexive step backward. His eyes walk up her body then back down it. He nods toward her. “You live here?”

Heather blinks at him. “Um.”

He shakes his head, the toothpick bobs. “You’re too pretty to live here.” And then he’s gone, stomping up the steps, the metallic sound echoing in the stairwell. She hears a door slam. A moth vibrates against the light above her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: dub con/non con, manipulation, graphic descriptions of film violence

Mark’s wearing the shirt from the picture. The same two top buttons undone, just the barest hint of his chest hair overtop. And she’s spent so much time on his twitter, on his department profile, trying to untangle this mess, that it takes her a beat to realize it’s him, in the flesh, standing in front of her. Looming really, filling the doorway. A deliberate obstruction. Heather glances behind her. The classroom is empty. All of her students have already filed out. Today’s class ran long. Students scrambling with the final now just around the corner and she’s worn down to her very bones. So she tries to think of a casual way to ask him what the fuck he’s doing here, but instead just lands on: “How did you know this is where I teach?”

He cocks his head, grinning. “TA schedules are in the faculty portal”

“Ah.”

He’s still in the doorway, still blocking her way, and he seems to realize it, softening his stance. He bumps his hip out, crosses his arms over his chest. His smile’s a little crooked. “You’re a hard woman to pin down.”

She sniffs, brushing her hair behind her ears. “I don’t appear to be.”

His laugh comes out tinny, vaguely menacing. Or maybe she’s just imagined it because when another professor comes down the hall, his greeting is warm and friendly. His smile when he turns back to her is warm too and Heather finds herself releasing the tension in her shoulders. He hasn’t texted her in days, hasn’t sought her out on campus. And the way he’s standing now – arms crossed, appropriate distance away – makes her think that whatever happened between them is fading like she’d hoped it would. The last week of back to back texts and near constant looming just a strange blip. Temporary insanity. Some strange retrograde. “Do you have a minute?”

Heather straightens her bag on her shoulder and glances down the hallway. This was her last section of the day and the hallway has cleared mostly out. The late afternoon sun casts everything in soft, muted light; distant footfalls echo on the old linoleum floor. She’s planning to head back up to her office after this, try and finally get some reading done. Maybe even some writing. But even the idea starts to make her feel weary. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?” She tries to keep her tone light. Plausible deniability. Maybe they can both just forget about all this.

“I want to discuss the chapter you sent me.” He nods down the hall toward the stairs. “Up in my office.” 

Heather perks immediately up. “Oh.” She adjusts her bag again, a clearer relief flooding through her now. He wants to talk about work. That seamless, easy buffer of academic discourse. She can do that. _God_ she would be _so_ happy to just be doing that. “Yeah, of course.” And then, with just a quick glance back at the empty classroom behind her, “thanks.” 

His hands are on her hips. All ten fingers. The brief flare of surprise she feels dissolves quickly into dread. The door to his office clicks shut; his chest presses flush to her back. He chuckles and it’s still warm. Still charming and easy and yet his fingers drag upward, his hips cant toward her. Desperate, childish. Like a dog. Her whole body seizes up, every inch, but still pliable enough that it moves easily as he steers her toward his desk, bending her roughly over it. Her hair spills onto an open book, hands steadying herself on the wood, scattering pens and paperclips. She disrupts a mug, cold coffee spilling onto her fingers, staining the edge of a notebook. He walks his hand up her spine. “I’ve wanted to do this forever.” And she wonders what he means by forever. What he means by this. With her? With someone else? He’s only been here for two years. Less than her. Junior faculty, green as green can be. So she wonders as he bumps his hips toward her if she’s the star of this show or if he’s been beating it to the idea of any old graduate student bent over his desk. If it’s about the power or the person or the idea or Jesus Christ why can’t she put this much fucking thought into her own dissertation? He squeezes her ass. One cheek, then the other. “God, you are so sexy.” He bumps her again, more cold coffee spilling over the lip of his mug. She hears heels clack down the hall outside his door, heading away. “You are such a hot little thing.” _That_ snaps her out of her quiet compliance. So corny, so decidedly unsexy. She can’t stand it. He’s pulling at the beltloops on her jeans, still grinding himself against her ass. Heather jerks away, turning to face him, upending more of the menagerie on his desk. A brief look of terror passes over his face, fading quickly as he runs a hand through his hair. “You’re into this right?” But he’s unzipping his jeans as he asks. Heather brushes her hair from her face. Her lips feel a little numb, the tips of her fingers. “You’re into this.” It isn’t a question this time, soft like he’s reassuring himself. “You were so into this last time.” Last time. She’d been too drunk to feel him slamming into her cervix that night, but the dull ache she’d felt between her hips for days afterward sends her stumbling a little backward. She should go. The door seems miles away. An uncrossable distance. He has a book coming out in the summer. Sent her a long email about it when she first asked him to join her committee. Popular press, not academic. Important. A big deal. She doesn’t know why the fuck she’s thinking shit like this now. _Go say hello,_ her advisor told her, nudging her forward at his first talk post-hire, _he’d be a great asset to have in your field for post-doc_. The door seems to lurch further away.

On instinct, Heather lowers herself onto her knees. He cocks his head. Like he had in the hallway, like she’s seen him do in the audience at conferences. Thinking, gears turning, always vaguely amused. “Let me suck your dick.” She doesn’t sound like herself. Too reedy, too high-pitched.

He seems unsteady on his feet for a moment, then cocks his head again. “Wow, okay. Okay sure.” He lets his jeans drop, glances back at the door to his office. “God this is so fucking wrong.” He pumps his cock once, twice. “So fucking hot and so fucking wrong.” Heather’s mouth has been open so long her tongue feels dry. His cock slides rough across it, jamming into one side of her cheek, mashing against her teeth. She chokes on it when he rights himself. He takes hold of her hair.

The bathroom on the third floor is always dim, like one bulb or the other has flickered out. And the strong antiseptic smell that seems to be constantly hanging in the air implies a kind of filth that keeps it mostly empty. Which is why she’s here, crying with her head on the side of the sink, crouched down, knees bent. She’d started crying as soon as she left his office. Wet, angry tears sliding down her cheeks, so bright with humiliation that it felt almost physical. A corporeal shame. Now, fingers gripping the porcelain, she’s not even sure what she’s crying about. Nothing and everything. Crying herself sick. Crying so loudly that she doesn’t hear the door open.

“Oh shit.” The woman’s voice echoes. Heather rises to her feet so quickly she nearly bangs her head on the side of the sink. She wipes furiously at her cheeks, straightening up. “Sorry, I, um…” Oh god. Oh fuck. Heather knows her. Rachel takes a step back, mouth just a little open. Her long braid brushes against the buttons of her cardigan. They’ve been co-TAs since the start of the semester, mashed together by the budget cuts that make Frankenstein classes like _History 103: Europe and the World_ even possible. She studies Byzantine diplomacy; lives alone in the austere block of graduate housing a few blocks away. Once, the only time they ever went out for a drink together, Rachel, sloppy mouthed and blushing, told her that she’d never even been kissed. And in this moment, Heather hates her. Just for being here, for seeing this. From the way Heather’s lips are numb from sucking his cock and she’s never been kissed. Rachel fiddles with the thin strap of her purse. “I can, um, if you need me to…”

Heather shrugs her own bag onto her shoulder. “No, it’s fine. I was just on my way out.”

She catches her reflection in the glass before she opens the refrigerator and finds herself stuck by it, hand fused around the door handle, feet glued to the grimy tile. Her eyes are swollen, red blotches blooming across her cheeks. Her lips are swollen too, jaw sore. She can taste him in the back of her throat, stuck there like phlegm. The door dings and Heather cranes her neck to make sure the couple that’s just walked in to the 7/11 isn’t someone she knows. She looks back at the glass, opens the door to banish her own reflection.

She imagines alternatives as she waits in line at the register, two energy drinks tucked under one arm, a bag of chips hanging from her free hand. She imagines, as she sets her purchases on the counter, rising from her knees and leaving, heading back out into the hallway to go get her books. She imagines, as she fishes for some cash in her purse, telling Mark to fuck right off. Brushing him off, sending a curt but firm email to her advisor that she’d like someone else to act as her fourth reader, please. Heather sniffles when the cashier hands her a receipt. Her phone vibrates. _I had fun today ; )_ Her stomach turns. She heads back out onto the sidewalk, sun so bright now she has to shield her eyes. Another buzz. _I actually would like to go over those edits sometime. I have some comments._ She doesn’t know if he means it to be a threat, but it so easily could be.

The chapter she can’t quite seem to write is on _Early Works_. 1969. One of Zelimir Zilnik’s earliest films. A classic of Yugoslavian Black Wave and the movie that first got her interested in the movement, in the art. So the chapter feels particularly important. Personal. And it’s not just that. The lynchpin chapter, her advisor keeps saying, the chapter that will tie the whole dissertation together. Every time she tries to start, she gets a headache. Today especially, her sinuses cramped from crying. Heather shifts on the floor where she’s sitting, knocks an open book with her knee. She finishes the last of one energy drink then cracks open the second, an unpleasant buzz already settling in just under her skin. Heather plops a couple chips into her mouth and frowns at her laptop.

She’s trying to make an argument about purity, about state making. About the media. About bodies. Women’s bodies. A loose argument that she can talk circles around all day but can’t make real when she tries to put pent to paper. So she’s watching it again. Maybe for the hundredth time. Trying to tease out some shred of new analysis. Something she can do something with. Heather takes another long drink, grimaces at the chemical taste. She’s paused the movie near the end, halfway through the movie’s most important scene. It’s a closeup shot, all black and white, of a woman covered in mud. Her hair in two braids, ragged from where it’s been pulled and yanked. Her shirt askew, arms slack, back bowed. Behind her a man leers, behind him a man ignores them both. Such a convincing look of desperation and terror on her face that Heather has to look away.

They kill her after this, in the movie. Kill her and rape and wrap her in the flag of Yugoslavia and set her and the flag on fire. Obvious symbolism. The destruction of the state, of the motherland. Almost heavy handed. So easily contextualized, folded into her larger argument, and yet all Heather can see when she looks back at the still on her computer is a woman picked apart. By the men in the film, by the director, by the dozens of men who have already written about this film, about this exact scene. All she can see is real fear. She feels a pinprick of it inside herself. Heather shuts her laptop. Birds chirp outside, the sun still skimming the horizon. Anita’s put some music on out in the kitchen. Heather’s focus is shot. She closes her eyes and can still taste him in the back of her throat.

Heather doesn’t really like weed. Not like this. She’ll take a toke of a blunt if it’s being passed around, a hit from a bong in the basement of a party. Smoking alone always feels…unpleasant. Inappropriate. But she can’t relax. There’s a bottle of Xanax on her bedside table. Prescribed by her doctor last year when she was writing her prelims, when she couldn’t sleep or eat or swallow her anxiety was so intense. It’ll snow her though, take her completely down for the count. And she needs to work. For real, this time. And so she bums some rolling papers off of Anita, digs around for the stash of old weed she keeps in her underwear drawer, and heads out onto their narrow balcony.

The first hit burns, sharp and then stale. She grimaces at the joint, but on the exhale her shoulders soften. Placebo, she knows, but just the idea that maybe this’ll chill her out. Her skin feels tight from crying. Anita asked her about it, her obvious tears. _Just work,_ she’d said, _just stressed._

She takes another long hit, lets the exhale run long, the smoke plume out in front of her. So suddenly enamored by the way to the sky melts blue to pink to the dusty ochre of the soil out behind the building, that she barely registers the sound of a sliding glass door beside her. “Fucking Christ.” She turns to the source of the voice only to find the same man from the night before out on the next door balcony, just inches from her own. Tonight, he’s in just a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans that skims down his long legs, his graying hair slicked back off his face. He doesn’t seem to notice her, just takes a quick swig from the glass he’s brought out with him. Heather can smell the sharp nip of whiskey from where she’s standing, watches as he rests his forearms against the railing, looks out at the setting sun. He’s handsome, Heather thinks, really handsome. She feels prickly high and over sexed and there’s a pleasant strangeness in watching. Playing the voyeur. “Nice night,” he says to the empty air, taking another sip of his drink, “real nice night.” There’s a smoke to his voice, a low gravel. Heather settles back against her own railing, barely six feet away from, and takes a long hit of her joint. “You gonna keep staring, sweetheart, or you gonna do something about it?” She nearly chokes. The man straightens, leans one hip onto the railing one leg crossed in front of the other. His smirk almost predatory. “Now if it ain’t that pretty thing from the mailroom.” Heather swallows hard. “I do not believe we’ve been properly acquainted.” It’s too much. It’s all too much. Heather ashes the joint so quickly she burns the tips of her fingers, slams the sliding door so hard as she ducks inside the apartment, the glass rattles. She hears him call something she can’t quite make out after her, yanks the blinds across the door.

“Whoa,” Anita calls from the kitchen, “everything okay?”

Heather takes a deep breath through her nose.“Yeah, sorry. I’m fine.”

Anita’s leaning up against the kitchen counter when Heather comes back in, a sarong hung long across her hips, wearing just a sports bra on top. Looking effortlessly, intoxicatingly chill. A few of her friends have shown up, nursing beers across the kitchen counter. “You sure? You seem on edge.”

Heather brushes her hair behind her ears. “I’m fine, yeah.”

“Well, alright. If you say so.” She says with a shrug. “Oh!” She calls as Heather heads down the hall. “Did you hear? Some guy moved in next door!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

Heather doesn’t cry. Not in public and never like this. But here she is, back in that awful bathroom, tucked away in the last stall this time, crying so hard her sinuses have started to throb. Her whole body in the mix. Snot and phlegm; chest so tight it’s like an ache

This wasn’t totally unexpected. In fact, she’d tossed and turned all last night, stomach too in knots to eat this morning, worrying that her advisor might say exactly what she ended up saying in her book-lined office, so dense with house plants and old film reel that it generates its own humid ecosystem. _Not your best work._ Heather heaves, wiping snot with her arm. It wasn’t even that harsh. And it was all true. This latest chapter a winding, meandering mess. An argument so full of holes it’s practically see-through. But god, what the fuck was she supposed to say? _Sorry my chapter’s shit, I think I’m like catatonically depressed._ Heather scrapes her hair back off her face, takes a long, shaky inhale. “It’s okay.” She says out loud, voice echoing in the narrow stall, “you’re okay.”

She looks, honestly, like someone punched her in the face. Eyes swollen from crying, the dark bags underneath them some approximation of bruises. Her hair’s a mess, waves like a lion’s mane around her head. She needs to get her ends trimmed, needs to take a fucking shower. She opens the cooler door and sends her reflection running. Anita’ll probably have something cooking for dinner. She’s big on that kick now. Digging up old cookbooks at second-hand stores, pouring over the food newsletter the LA Times sends every Sunday. She lost her job at a tech firm two months ago. Seems to have been the best thing that could have happened to her. Cooking and laying out by the pool. Going out dancing and watching tv. A thick severance package cushioning the blow. Jealous may not be the right word for the way Heather feels about it, but it’s not exactly the wrong word either. But it’s not like she hasn’t benefited. Heather spent that first week of Anita’s unemployment not even trying to pretend to work. They lay languid on the couch, working their way through every Italian film in Heather’s Criterion collection through UCLA, working their way too through every delivery place within a half-mile radius. They’d mowed through plates of tacos, pad thai; trays of sushi and sandwiches. Licking their fingers after late-night fries. And then Anita got it in her head to start trying to make the stuff. Found out she isn’t half bad. They’ve both been eating good ever since. But Heather feels like shit. And she wants to eat like shit. She spots a tombstone pizza in the corner of the freezer. Supreme. Freezer burned on one edge. _Perfect._

She imagines alternatives as she waits in line at the register, two energy drinks tucked under her arm, the ice on the frozen pizza melting against her palm. She imagines herself walking confidently into her advisor’s office, laughing easily. _It’s a work in progress,_ she imagines herself saying, _I’m just trying to get a feel for the material._ She imagines herself coolly accepting Mary’s critiques. _Yes, yes. I hadn’t thought of that. Sure, okay._ She imagines herself not crying in the bathroom after.

It hadn’t even been that bad, Heather thinks as she fishes for a few spare bills in the back pocket of her shorts, the cashier glowering at her. Lukewarm criticism at worst. What had hurt the most, really, was the way Mary looked at her, the sort of soft way she’d been speaking. Like Heather was a kid, like Mary thought she would burst into tears at any moment. Well, Heather thinks heading back out onto the sidewalk, she wasn’t wrong about that. _Just rework it,_ Mary told her, _go back and look at the previous chapter or your master’s thesis. Model off of that._ Heather’s not really sure she can. Looking back through her old work sometimes feels like stumbling onto someone else’s. Not a goddamn clue how she managed the stamina to write all of it. Not sure she can clear her head long enough these days to make those same connections.

Heather cracks open the can and takes a long sip, grimacing at the taste. She started drinking this shit during her prelims. Hasn’t occurred to her to stop, apparently. Her phone buzzes. She pauses mid-sip, glances down at her bag. The streets feel more crowded than they did yesterday, even as evening starts to wane toward night. The weather’s warm and she can spot more than a few tourists making their way down the sidewalk. Lost more than likely. No other reason to be this far away from downtown. Her phone buzzes again. She grimaces, rummages around for it in her bag. She doesn’t even really need to look; she knows who it’s from.

_Still on campus?_

_Heather?_

Heather doesn’t really party. Not anymore. Not like she used to. The first two years she moved to LA, it was all she did. High on the city and the sharp, quick feeling that graduate school gave her. That she’d done something. Made it somewhere. The first year was all consumption, no production and it was easy to feel self-important, cocooned. Then it started to whittle away at her. Chipping at her energy, her free time. And, besides, she used to have actual habits. Things that made her party less, sleep more. She used to wake up early every Sunday to head to the Brentwood market, stroll through the long rows of stands, heavy with fruit and vegetables and pastry. She’d spend the rest of her day working, bouncing from coffee shop to coffee shop, popping in to the library to see if she could find anyone she knew. Things that made not waking up with a hangover worth it. But she doesn’t do any of that shit now. Hasn’t in fucking months. Doesn’t sleep much either, doesn’t work. Heather doesn’t really know what the fuck she’s been doing with her days, hours slipping through her fingers like sand. Bleeding into nothing, marching forward toward a destination she can’t even really see anymore.

Which is probably why, eyes still puffy from crying, she feels just a sort of numb nothing when Anita tells her that she’s gonna have, in her words, _a real rager._ In their apartment. Tonight. _Invited everybody, pretty much._ Which, in LA, with Anita, could be a hundred fucking people. “I wanna get fucked up,” she says, splitting a donut between her fingers and taking a bite, “I don’t wanna remember tonight.”

She’s getting there. The sequined party dress that she picked up from a secondhand store on Hawthorne slipping down her shoulders. A beer in one hand, a joint in the other. Her hips catch the dim light as they move, scattering neon across the packed room. And their place is _packed._ Stupid packed. Claustrophobically packed. Generating its own heat packed. Heather doesn’t know even most of the people that are here, and she isn’t sure Anita does either.

Heather’s pretty fucked up too. Five beers down and the two shots of tequila she and Anita had right before people started arriving. All on a mostly empty stomach. She’d tossed the pizza into their crowded freezer and mostly forgotten about it. Suddenly frantic by Anita’s announcement that people would be showing up _literally any minute._ She’d taken a scalding shower, managed to brush some order into her hair without flattening it out completely. She’d found her shortest shorts and tucked an oversized t-shirt from the Monterrey Aquarium into their high waist; tried to call it good. _Kinda model-y,_ Anita told her when Heather complained about the deep bags under her eyes. She’d been spreading gloss on her lips, Heather perched beside her on the bathroom counter. _Mysterious._ Heather doesn’t feel very mysterious, perched now on one of their stools at the kitchen counter, the bass from Anita’s music thrumming through the floor.

But she must look mysterious. Or some other kind of appealing because before long one of Anita’s tattoo shop buddies nods at her from across the room. He’s got sandy hair and a not a bare patch of skin that Heather can see, tatted from his knuckles to the base of his jaw and it would all be very appealing if Heather wasn’t feeling a profound and unending revulsion toward her own body and everyone else’s. “I think we met a couple months ago.” He says, sitting down beside her. “Heather, right?” He has a nice smile. Heather feels a little sick, like all the beer she’s had is sloshing around in her stomach. He scoots a little back, cocking his head. “Are you…okay?”

Heather sniffles, then stands. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just like really fucked up.”

“Oh man, yeah, no worries.” She breezes past him down toward her bedroom. “Feel better!” He calls over the music.

She exhales when the door closes. Takes a long, deep breath. Her room smells familiar. Like beeswax candles and dryer sheets, like the sweet sweat smell of her own body. Like burning charcoal from the open window that looks down onto the narrow back parking lot, like the pinon trees that line the road by the complex. She feels a flicker of embarrassment for leaving like that and then nothing. Flicks the light on then heads to stand in front of her closet’s mirrored sliding doors. They take up almost the whole wall, giving her a vantage of the whole room. It looks almost vacuous tonight. She looks at her body and feels nothing. It didn’t use to be like that. She remembers a distinct pleasure in the lines of her long limbs, the movement of her body, the way her hair moved over her shoulders. She remembers liking herself. Heather kneads at her eyes with the heels of her hands. She turns away from the mirror.

Anita introduced her before, to the blonde guy she’d just ditched. Maybe a few months ago. _He’s a cool dude,_ she’d said, _chill, respectful. He thinks you’re cute._ Might be fun. Been a minute since she’s had something chill or respectful in her life. But the idea of letting someone touch her feels exhausting. Her libido left months ago, hasn’t been seen since. Shit, maybe even more than a year. No real reason, honestly. Just another thing that had started to fray at the edges when she passed her prelims. Like she’d bore down too hard on herself to pass, the pressure so intense she’d started to crumble. Late work, shoddy work. No sleep. And then all at once it was like her body shut off. Didn’t want to fuck, didn’t want to be touched. She hasn’t masturbated since last March. Something she hasn’t told anyone, not even Anita. Fucking Mark had been a sort of last-ditch, destructive little effort to reignite _something_ inside of her. Speaking of. She checks her phone and finds no new messages from him. Which is both a relief and something that fills her with dread. Because if he’s texting, she can at least get a sense of where he is, where he’s at with her. His silence could mean anything at all.

Lately, she’s been having these crazy thoughts. Like he’ll just show up at her apartment. Half-cocked grin on his face. _Fancy meeting you here._ She’s not even sure what she’d do. No, scratch that. She knows exactly what she’d do, remembering how she’d fallen so easily to her knees. Maybe that’s what gets her. Not the idea that he’d come here and fuck her, but the idea that she’d let him even though every part of him repulses her now.

She checks his twitter. An impulse that makes her hate herself even more. His most recent tweet three hours ago. A picture of his _partner_ at a table by the water, the sunset at her back. _Sampling some of LA’s finest,_ he writes by way of caption, the gross double entendre sets Heather’s teeth on edge. If Heather remembers right, they’ve been together for a year. She’d heard that from another professor. Mark, of course, doesn’t talk to Heather about her.

She’s a wiry woman with closely cropped hair and a penchant for blouses that show off her muscular arms. A professor of English maybe a decade older than him. Heather resents her. Resents her almost sexless sensuality. The way she’s so sure that she’ll be taken seriously. The way she probably is. The way she thinks that the man sitting across from her loves her. Maybe he does. Heather’s head hurts. _Your boyfriend won’t stop texting me to ask for pictures of my tits._ She fantasizes sending that to her, sending it from her .edu. And she’s seriously considering it. Fingers hovering over her screen, drunk and destructive when she hears a crash. Louder than the thudding music and the hum of talking. She slides her phone into the back pocket of her shorts and slips back out into the hallway just in time to see Anita slamming the front door, red-faced and scowling. “What a fucking asshole.” She scrapes her hair from her face. “What a fucking asshole.” She sniffs, bouncing on the balls of her feet, scanning the room. “Where’s Heather.” Heather slips through the crowd of people near the kitchen, steadies herself on Anita’s shoulder. “Shit there you are.”

“What’s going on?”

Anita shakes her head. “Some guy who lives here’s pissed, I guess. Came over pitching a fit, telling us to quiet down. Like where the fuck does he think he lives? This isn’t the fucking suburbs.” She glances back at their door. “I’m worried his ass is gonna call the cops or something. I can’t get everybody out of here quick enough for that” Anita is all movement, a manic, booze fueled sort of wave that can spill, Heather knows, quickly over into rage. She’d punched a bouncer in the face once. A year ago. Maybe two. Clean hit. Heather watched him spit two of his teeth out onto the sidewalk as they’d both run from the club.

Heather glances at the door. “I can talk to him.”

Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ve only had a little to drink.” Which is a lie. One that feels particularly dangerous as she heads toward the front door, leaning on the wall to keep herself upright.

The air’s cool when Heather steps out into the hall. The smell of that grill stronger now that she’s closer to the parking lot. She can feel the bass of Anita’s music under her feet on the concrete floor and there’s something suspended about it, buoyed up by booze, a wall of muted quiet now that she’s outside of the apartment.

She isn’t surprised that the guy waiting for her is the same one from the balcony. Figures that it would be the new guy throwing a fit about noise. He’s in his leather jacket again, hair slicked back, the salt and pepper on his beard mostly salt down around his chin. He’s just a touch tanned, sturdy neck that she follows down to the collar of his white shirt. Muscular in a sort of older guy way. Heather isn’t really even sure why she’s looking.

He hears her shut the door and whirls around, frown so deep it makes his nose twitch. Something almost predatory about him, menacing in the most primordial sense, but Heather doesn’t feel afraid. Feels…she isn’t sure exactly but it sends her walking toward him. “Finally, someone to talk to. You kids plannin’ in keeping me up all night?” Then he blinks, takes a long look and one side of his mouth ticks up. “Oh well hello, if it’s isn’t the rude little thing from the balcony. Wouldn’t even say hello.”

Whatever quiet, drunken reverie she’d slipped into, _that_ pulls her hard out from it. “Literally fuck off.”

“Goddamn girl you got a _mouth_ on _you.”_ That grin never leaves his face and it sparks something inside of Heather.

A quick rage that has her scoffing at him, a quick dismissal with the wave of her hand.

“What do you think this is Beverly Grove or something? People have parties here. Invest in some fucking earplugs if it bothers you.”

His grin widens, less menacing now and he rocks a little back on his heels, his tongue caught between his teeth. “Well, well, well, aren’t you a little firecracker.”

The air seems to slow a little. Unsteady, she reaches for the wall, then retracts her hand, not wanting to look as drunk as she is. Heather can feel her heart thumping in her chest. It isn’t fear exactly, but something else, maybe something just as strong. “Listen, I’ll tell then to turn shit down, okay? Just please don’t call the fucking cops.”

He cocks his head, smile faltering. “Do I look like the kinda guy who would call the cops?” She narrows her eyes at him. He seems a little tipsy himself. “Didn’t think so. But I gotta get up real early in the morning so I’d appreciate some fucking shut eye.”

“I just said I’d tell them to quiet down, okay?” 

His eyes glitter, tongue darting quickly out. Lecherous. But not like Mark. Nothing like him. An entirely different genre of lust. Heather does reach out this time, to steady herself on the wall. “Had a little too much to drink, sweetheart?” She scoffs, backing away. She hears him chuckle when she turns back toward the door. “You take care now.”

Heather runs the water to try and drown out the noise outside the bathroom, leaning heavy on the sides of the sink, trying to catch her breath. That feeling that isn’t quiet fear expands, articulates itself into something different. Hot and easy and faintly familiar. She looks in the mirror. Her lips look swollen, pretty. Her hair in soft waves around her shoulders. She thinks about Anita’s tattooed friend, about the neighbor. She thinks about being touched.

That night, around four am, when the party has moved somewhere else and the apartment has fallen into an almost eerie quiet, she hears the neighbor guy fuck. At first, she isn’t sure what it is. Just a rhythmic tap, tap tap at the head of her bed. She’s been in and out of sleep for hours, drifting through strange, frantic dreams and the sound, at first, feels like the dregs of one. She opens her eyes in the cool darkness of her room and frowns, listening. Then moaning joins the sound. Soft, almost gasping. A lush sort of sound. And then she hears his voice. That faintly southern growl. “There you go baby, fucking take it.”

It cuts through her. That feeling that she hadn’t been able to untangle in the bathroom surging back through her. She tamps it down, pulling her pillow over her head. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah, that’s a good girl.”

Her stomach tightens. ”Jesus fucking Christ.” She throws her pillow down, twisting up to pound loudly on the wall. “Keep it the fuck down!” A pause. Then the thrusting starts again, harder. Up tempo. Heather lays back down, crosses her arms over her forehead, scrunches her eyes shut. Her bed rocks from the force of his thrusts through the wall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	4. Chapter 4

The paper’s on the Reformation. _In what ways did the Reformations on the European continent differ from the ones occurring in England. What are the social, cultural, and economic factors responsible for these differences?_ Who the fuck cares. Not Heather. And obviously not her students either. She knows about as much about the period as they do – skimmed the readings, nearly nodded off during lecture – so she’s not expecting all that much, but once she breezes through the papers of the few students who do predictably well, things go quickly downhill. There’s a couple handwritten papers back to back – one with neat, almost childlike lettering and the other an illegible scrawl. Heather almost respects the audacity. _Times New Roman, 12-point font_ is _bolded_ on the syllabus. There’s one paper that’s, confusingly, on the Enlightenment. But it takes Heather almost two pages to realize it and it’s well-written enough that she gives it a tepid C+. One paper has _im sorry_ scrawled in pen above paragraph that has to be in at least 15-point font. She gives him a D, nearly writes a note for him to come see her in her office hours before reconsidering. _Yeah,_ she thinks, worrying the skin around her thumb with her nail, _yeah I’ve probably only got about a paragraph in me too._

Those are the only ones of note. The others are just…depressing. So obviously thrown together at the last minute, but bombastic enough that she knows they’re supposed to be at least adequate. None of them are. Which is a headache. She can imagine the emails now. They always cc the professor; whatever creative variation of _I deserve a better grade_ they can come up with in the body _._ Heather can’t remember being that ballsy ever, can’t remember ever feeling like she could get away with something like that. _This isn’t a democracy,_ she almost wrote back once earlier in the semester, _sorry no one’s told your shit sucks before._ A class full of business bros trying to fulfill their singular humanities credit. What the hell did she expect? Heather leans her back against the side of her bed, lets her head fall onto the duvet, hair spilling down her shoulders. She kneads one eye with the heel of her hand, then the other. God, she’s so fucking tired. Slept like shit all night long. Tossing and turning, so drunk her equilibrium had her spinning around in her sheets. The darkness cast shadowy shapes on the wall, the mirror every time she tried to open her eyes and before she could try to piece the shapes together, she’d be pulled quickly back under into half-sleep.

The neighbor guy must have literally fucked all night long because her dreams were wet and hot and rowdy. Fingers crawling up her thighs. Teeth and lips and tongue. Heat just radiating out from between her legs. An almost religious sort of ecstasy. Her body arched back, hands searching through the darkness for the source. 

Heather woke up wet and flushed and humiliated to the same rhythmic pounding she fell asleep to. _He seems fun,_ Anita had snorted over her cup of morning coffee when Heather shuffled like the dead out into the kitchen. The soft moans and panting now reaching a full-throated crescendo that rolled like an echo through their apartment. _Very fun._

Fun or no, he’s quiet now. Very quiet. A bird trills loudly then falls silent. A siren comes rolling down the street before it’s gone. And then just nothing. An almost jarring nothing. There’s a feeling inside of her that she’s finding hard to place. Despair but less poetic. A feeling almost practical in its bleakness. The paper in her lap crinkles when she shifts, reaching for her phone like it’s the only instinct she has anymore. Mark’s twitter open before she even really knows what she’s doing. He’s been quiet for a few days. No texts, no calls, and as she scrolls, Heather can see why. Post after post. Almost all pictures. He must be on vacation. Some sort of long weekend with his partner. That hits Heather square in the chest. That he would devote all this time, all this digital space to something he can’t even stay inside. Heather wonders if she knows he fucked her on their couch, wonders if she has any inkling at all.

There’s a picture of his partner looking coyly over her shoulder at him, the sort of murky neon darkness of an aquarium an outline all around her. _Bellisimo,_ he writes under the photo and Heather’s stomach turns. She feels bad, gross, guilty. She keeps scrolling. The most recent, just a minute old, is another picture of his partner. This time she’s looking down at a menu, ignoring him completely. They’re at a restaurant, someplace on a pier. White wood railings and pale drinks with mint mashed at the bottom, little flecks of green spinning upward on seltzer bubbles. The beach in the background looks almost chilly; the scrub around the rocks short and dark. They’re probably gone somewhere north. Monterey? She scrolls down for clues, isn’t really sure why this matters so much to her. But just the idea that he might be out of the city, _five whole hours out of the city_ , makes her feel really chilled out. Like she’s got the whole weekend to herself. Heather lets her head rest back on the blanket, takes a long, deep breath. Maybe she should take a nap. Or, oh wow, maybe she should take a bath. Long and hot and soapy. Her phone buzzes in her palm and she looks almost dreamily at it. She blinks once, twice, and then her whole body goes rigid.

_From: Mark Elan <melans@humnet.ucla.edu>_  
_To: Heather Temple <_ [ _htemple@humnet.ucla.edu_ ](mailto:htemple@humnet.ucla.edu) _>  
_ _Subject: Office_

_Heather. Hey. Finally got through that chapter of yours. Would love to talk details._

_Happy to talk over email but you and I seem to be most productive in person._

_\- Mark_

Gross. Fucking gross. _Fuck this_. Heather stands, the papers in her lap spilling onto the floor. He’s got to still be sitting at that table, right across from his girlfriend. It’s so gross. Horrible. Layers of shitty. She imagines sitting in his office, listening to him dress her chapter down like her advisor had, but his knee bumping hers, his hand inching closer. Awful. Heather heads to her dresser, bumps her knee on the lower drawer as she digs through the top one. Her little baggy of weed feels almost crispy between her fingers, but Heather figures it doesn’t really matter if the weed is old as shit. Probably still works, right? Fuck, she literally cannot remember the last time she smoked this much weed, this often. College probably. Her freshman year. She was scared of everything then. Men and alcohol and parties and herself. A few bits of bud slip through her fingers as she rolls. She should sweep her floor. It needs it. Badly. She needs to just take a whole day, work her way through the grout between the tiles, clean the big mirror. It’s hard to imagine ever finding the time. Or the energy. Heather glances over at her bedside table as she licks the rolling paper closed. A stack of books she hates, a few half-empty cups of tea. Chamomile probably. Maybe kava kava. She’d spent too much time and too much money at some herb shop in Los Feliz at the start of the new year, trying to find something to make her heart stop pounding in her ears. Her bottle of xanax’s collecting dust by the lamp. She tucks the joint between her teeth and heads out into the hall.

The weed kicks up fast. She’s always been like that. A lightweight. Like her body’s just absorbing whatever she gives it like a sponge. And luckily the day is nice. Good to absorb. Not too hot, not chilly. A bit of a breeze. Lots of blue sky. The sun feels good on her skin and she closes her eyes to let it warm her lids. And she’s so chilled out that she doesn’t open them when she hears the sliding glass door, or the footsteps, or the shuffling clink of ice in a glass. But she does when she hears a heavy sigh. One eye then the other. And there he is.

He’s standing over by the far end of the balcony, leaning on his forearms. She should have probably expected him. They seem to be synched up, on the same schedule somehow. He swirls a glass around in his hand, the contents a pale yellow. Lemonade, she thinks. She can almost smell the citrus, the sugar.

It takes her a minute to realize that he’s shirtless, a minute for that strange warm chaos from her dream to settle back into her. Heather stiffens, sure that she’s blushing from her scalp to her chest. But he doesn’t seem to have noticed her, seems contented to just watch the traffic crawl along the road, to gaze out toward the far-off ocean. So she looks too. At him. Because he might be a menace, but he is nice to look at. His stomach’s a smooth plane, arms muscled but not too bulky. A wiry sort of body that makes her feel suddenly very adult. There’s a dark line of hair that starts at his chest and trails down toward the zipper of his jeans. He’s got a few tattoos. All black and grey, sort of random. One on his chest, a couple on his upper arms. So faded she can’t really make them out. Heather likes the way his jeans skim around his hips, likes how his long fingers curl around the glass. She likes his eyes, a molten sort of brown, a mischievous glint in them. His eyes. Oh. Oh fuck. Heather bristles. “Shit.”

The man chuckles, tongue caught between his teeth, leaning back on the far railing to face her. “Well, well, well.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “If I didn’t know better, I might think you were out here waiting for me.” 

“Yeah, definitely not.” She hates the way she sounds childish, almost prudish. He chuckles again, raising his glass in a mocking toast before taking a sip. Then he yawns, wiping some sleep from his eyes, and Heather realizes that he’s probably just woken up. It’s late afternoon. She frowns. “I thought you had to be up early.”

He closes one eye, frowning. “Oh yeah? And why’d you think you that?”

“That’s what you said. You know, when you were throwing a fit in the hallway last night.”

His smile slips for a moment then quirks upward again. “Oh, I assure you I was _very_ busy this morning.”

Heather can almost feel that pounding, can almost hear those soft, panting cries. She’s got to be really red now, can feel the heat of her own skin. “Yeah, well I would appreciate if, next time, you kept it down a little.”

His eyes glitter. “Oh, no can do, honey. I’m afraid women just can’t help themselves when I’m the one screwing ‘em.”

Heather scoffs, rocking a little back. “Wow.”

He laughs a little, expression softening some. Then he just shrugs, still smiling. “What can I say?” Heather releases her shoulders, takes a long hit of the joint. Whatever fight or flight instinct he’d ignited in her is dissipating. He’s eyeing her now, differently maybe than he was before. The man straightens up, sets his glass on the railing, hands slipping into the pockets of his jeans. “So, tell me huh, what’s been making you cry, sweetheart?”

Heather goes rigid. “Excuse me?”

“Thin walls remember?”

Her lips twitch, that feeling that’s worse than despair lodged right back in her chest. Her phone’s still sitting on her bed. She imagines it pinging, vibrating right off the duvet. Right onto the stacks of papers she hasn’t finished, onto the books she hasn’t read. Maybe won’t read. Barreling toward absolutely nothing. She feels like she might cry again. Right in front of him. Just the idea is fucking mortifying. So she turns heel, heading back toward the sliding glass door. Then she pauses, looking back over at him. He’s got this look on his face that she can’t quite read. Mocking, though, just a little. She’s sure of that. “Fuck off, how about that?”

She hears him chuckle. “That weed’ll turn your brain, sweetheart.”

Heather rolls another joint and on the second hit, when the tile rises up to meet the wall, realizes that she’s had two too many. That the walls are breathing and she isn’t. That her phone is blinking, notification after notification, and it makes her feel like her lungs are going to pop.

She’d gone to doctor after doctor during her prelims – racked up a hell of a medical bill – worried about the times when she would be walking or sitting in seminar or riding the bus and the world would turn hard on its side. A woozy sort of seasick feeling washing over her. Anxiety, they’d all told her. Panic attacks. She feels woozy now. Her fingers stiff, a sort of static buzzing just along her jaw. Heather glances over at the Xanax on her bedside table, fingers twitching, caught between moving forward and moving back. It’s a bad idea, she knows, mixing the two, even as her heart has started to feel like it’s going to come up through her throat. She feels frozen, trapped where she’s standing. So unsteady she might just crumble. Waits for it to happen, feels almost disappointed when it doesn’t. The weed’s padded her brain with cotton, let the panic that’s come rising up inside of her so fast and so hard take free reign with her thoughts. She tries to wrestle it back. “A walk,” she says, her voice like an echo, “I’ll be fine after a walk.”

She rummages for her keys, stumbles out into the hallway. Anita’s out at the kitchen table, paging through a paperback, eating her way through a bag of salt and vinegar chips. Heather can smell the tang, steadies herself on the end of the table. “Hey,” Anita glances up from her book, “you okay?” Heather just nods, slipping through the front door out into the hall.

Heather circles the complex twice. Quick at first, hands balled into fists at her sides, like if she can hold her body tight enough, she can keep it together. She eases off as she loops around the pool for a second time. The weed’s mellowed and her thoughts have too. Her phone feels far away, the balcony feels far away. She takes a long, deep breath and lets the weed numb her out like it was supposed to from the start. Closes her eyes and just listens. Distant music and faraway chatter. The chirping of cricket down by the complex’s front fence; alone and early. The round sound of something bobbing quietly in water. She opens her eyes. The pool looks extra green today, the algae a little crispy like they’ve poured more chlorine in it. She can smell it as she gets closer, almost noxious, but Mr. Rudolph doesn’t seem to mind. He waves absently up at her. Wine today, she notices, a bottle of red tucked between his fleshy hip and the innertube. “Beautiful day today!” He calls.

“Very!” She calls back, even though it doesn’t feel very beautiful at all anymore. Feels too bright and a little too hot. And it must have been something about the pool that evened her out, because by the time she reaches her car in the back lot her chest is tight again, fingers a little numb. Because Monday is now looming, Mark is looming, her own ever growing sense of absolute failure looming.

Heather slides up onto the hood of her car, running her fingers along the hot metal. It’s the most expensive purchase she’s ever made. Saved and saved. A real labor of love. Her chariot. Tangible proof that she’d figured her own shit out. Sitting now useless, rotting on the asphalt. Jesus fucking Christ. Heather’s pretty sure she has 35 bucks in her checking account. If that. She sniffles, resting her head on her bent knees, holding herself tightly. Heather misses the panic attack. At least it crowded out the self-loathing. Can’t write her dissertation. Can’t pay to fix her car. Can’t keep her fucking legs closed. Jesus fucking Christ.

The whistle cuts clean through the late afternoon air. Sharp at first, then drifting off into melody. Heather doesn’t know the song, but she likes the sound of it. She looks up to find the neighbor guy out on his balcony. He isn’t looking at her but intently down at a pair of tomato plants. He’s easing them into pots, almost babying them. Heather’s not sure she’s seen anyone be this gentle with anything, much less a plant. But he’s taking his time, brushing soil from their leaves, looking up toward the sun like he’s guessing how it’ll hit them. She could use a little of that, Heather thinks as she leans back to get a better vantage to watch him. Some time, some care, some sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	5. Chapter 5*

The laundromat is two streets down from her apartment complex, shoved between a Chinese restaurant that Heather has never once seen open and a parking lot that’s more rubble than asphalt. It’s fifty cents cheaper per load than anyplace else in the city, but always smells faintly like chlorine, has a rim of black Anita has always been sure is mold where the wall meets the ceiling. And it is, above all, a good place to cry. Which she’s been doing a lot of lately. More than she can ever remember doing before. Cried on the bus home from her prelim defense last spring and hasn’t really stopped since.

Today it started in the afternoon. Another colloquium she couldn’t care less about but couldn’t seem to not go to. _Professional engagement,_ her advisor’s always telling her, _networking._ But she knows everybody that goes to these colloquiums, knows everybody _presenting_ at these colloquiums. The department’s ecosystem is shallow. Murky too lately. Almost viscerally unpleasant. A physical dread that she feels the moment she walks into the building. But she’d asked a question anyway, putting on the pretense of engagement. She doesn’t even remember now what she asked but can remember in absolutely fucking searing detail the way Mark, sitting two rows behind her, his eyes boring holes into the back of her head for the entire duration of the talk, scoffed loudly at it. So loudly that nearly half the room turned to look at him. _She_ turned to look at him. Found him with a single eyebrow raised, the ghost of a grin on his lips.

And it hadn’t even really been that. Or the almost wintry chill in the air when she slipped out of the rest of the talk early. Or the way the bus had made her feel vaguely seasick on the ride home. Or the overdraft notification her bank texted her when she’d tried to buy a red bull at the corner store. No, the reason she’s crying now – big, loud, pathetic tears – is because when she headed over to the laundromat’s dingy corner vending machine, her clothes chugging loudly in the washer at her, she found herself twenty-five cents short for _anything_ in the case. And that had been it, apparently. The proverbial straw. The last one, the one that broke the camel’s back. Who gives a shit. Heather can’t stop crying. Doesn’t even try to. Because it’s a special kind of dark outside, a lonely, heavy sort of dark. And the laundromat is empty. Until it isn’t.

“Shit, baby girl.” Heather nearly jumps out of her skin. His voice is unmistakable, that gravely southern drawl. She turns to face him, keenly aware that she has no fucking idea how long he’s been standing there. Maybe the whole fucking time and she can feel the livid heat of her blush come rushing up her cheeks. His hair’s slicked neatly back again, dressed this time in a gray t-shirt, jeans that skim the long lines of his legs. “Pretty depressing shit, crying in a laundromat.” Heather wipes furiously at her cheeks. He nods at her, leaning a little forward, voice a little softer when he speaks again. “You alright?”

Heather sniffles. “Yeah, fine.” The neon from the laundromat’s sign casts a watery reflection onto the chipped linoleum floor. There’s a chilly quality to it, one that makes her feel even more miserable. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He raises both eyebrows. “Laundry.”

She glances over his shoulder. There’s a laundry basket one washer away from hers. Her eyes flit back to his, find a sort of softness there that doesn’t match the smirk on his face, that takes the bite right out of it. “Right.” She softens her shoulders. “Yeah, of course.”

He runs his tongue along his bottom teeth, eyes narrowing, losing some of that softness. “You don’t look alright.”

Heather snaps. “I said I’m fine, so.”

He whistles, leaning a little back, eyes glittering. “Well, al-right. _Temper_ on _you,_ huh.” He has a jaunty way of moving, of speaking, that adds a certain layer to his charm. A rough kind of charisma that Heather’s not sure she’s ever seen on a person before. She brushes past him, heads back toward the machines. She can feel his gaze on her back. The air in the laundromat feels almost humid, the swamp cooler up by the ceiling chugging loudly.

They sit in silence for a while. Heather cross-legged on top of the washer, staring out into the neon night, trying to ignore the way her phone is burning a hole in her pocket. The neighbor guy’s in one of the laundromat’s rickety chairs, long legs outstretched, head resting back on his knitted fingers. The tv’s a little blurry, a bar of static comes rolling through the picture every so often. It’s a game show, Heather thinks, even though the volume is down too low for her to hear.

“You want something?” She glances over at him. He nods toward the vending machine and Heather feels that pang in her chest again, like she might cry. She rubs at her eyes, thinks, briefly, about all the sleep she isn’t getting.

“I don’t have any cash.”

He stands, groaning a little as he does. Heather wonders how old he is. Fifties probably, but it’s only the wrinkling beside his eyes and the grey in his hair that gives it away. The rest of him is wiry, spry. “My treat.”

He drops a pack of fruit snacks in her lap. “Sweets for that sweet face of yours.” He grins, tossing the apple he’d plucked from his pocket before catching it, taking a bite. He levels a finger at her, grinning wider, “and for how sweet you’ve been to me.”

Heather fights a smile. “Fuck off.”

He rocks back on his heels, tongue caught between his teeth. “See?  
Heather sniffles. She sits up a little straighter, pulling her legs closer to her body, rocking her hips a little. “Thank you.”

“Like I said, sweetheart,” he winks, “not a problem.”

“You know,” Heather says, tearing open the package and plopping one of the gummies in her mouth. Strawberry, a pleasant sort of artificial tang. “I don’t even know your name. Probably should with the way we keep running into each other.”

He turns the chair he’d been sitting on around, plops down and gazes up at her. She can see, his arms relaxed over the back of the chair, that he has more tattoos on his forearms. The same faded black and grey. “You first.”

She leans back on her hands, rolling her eyes. That nice liminal softness after a good cry has settled over her and she feels – even though it’s an awful, chilly night, even though she’s alone here with a man she doesn’t know – a quiet, sort of easy feeling. “Heather.”

“Pretty name for a pretty girl.”

She scoffs. “Do you ever not flirt?”

One side of his mouth ticks up. “I was just gonna ask if you were enjoying that washing machine.”

She frowns, narrowing her eyes, then notices the vibration from the cycle underneath her. she groans. “Wow. You’re a pig.”

His smile falters for a moment before flickering back to life. “What can I say? Can’t help myself.”

“You haven’t told me your name yet.”

“Negan.”

Heather cocks her head. “Is that a…last name? Nickname?”

“Nope.” And there’s something about the way he says it that makes her not want to tease him anymore, reminds her that she knows him not at all, reminds her of all the mistakes she’s been making lately. He stands again, taking another bite of his apple. “They got a bathroom in this shithole?”

“Not one you’d want to use.”

“Ain’t particularly picky.” She nods at the back of the room, watches as he heads down toward it, his shirt stuck to where the hard muscles of his back curve down toward his ass. She bristles, look away.

Her phone buzzes when she moves her load into the dryer and she goes so absolutely rigid at the sound that Negan turns to look at her, reclined again in that rickety chair. But it’s only Anita. Mark surprisingly silent even after she left the talk early.

_hey are you home?_

_everything okay?_

She slips her phone back into the pocket of her jeans then glances over at Negan’s laundry basket. It’s full, clothes neatly folded inside, machine quiet. She turns around to look at him, still watching what parts of the game show the static hasn’t distorted “Are you waiting for me?”

He leans back to look at her. “That would appear to be the case.”

“Why?”

“Least I can do is walk you home. Someone’s gonna rob you, looking a mess like that.”

The night’s a little warmer by the time they both head out of the laundromat, the cold snap from that morning nothing but a distant memory. And neither of them is talking. Just listening to the traffic, to the chatter from the bars just a street over. The pool’s empty when they slip past the complex’s gate. It looks lonely without its lone bather. The whole place is lonely tonight, quiet in a way she’s not sure it’s ever been. No music, no one loitering around the parking lot. It’s peaceful, really, the lights outside the doors flooding pale pink onto the floor as it washes over the stucco. She can hear his footsteps on the concrete, can hear her own, almost in time.

At the top of the hall stairs, Heather takes a long look at him. She’s not sure she’s ever found an older man this handsome before, but she’s sure that she wants him to fuck her, even if she has no idea what to do with that knowledge, even as her body snaps a little shut at the idea of it. “Whatcha looking at, doll?” Negan sets his laundry basket down outside his door, fishes in his back pocket for his keys.

“Nothing,” then she shrugs. “You.” She’s not really sure if she’s trying to flirt with him, not sure why she’s doing any of this at all.

And maybe Negan doesn’t know either, because he just chuckles, knocking his door open with his hip. “Sleep good, sweetheart.”

Anita’s still awake when Heather slips inside. Lingering in her doorway, the soft glow of her bedroom at her back. Her hair’s up in a towel, a terry cloth robe hanging a little loose on her body. “Hey.”

Heather sniffles, setting her keys onto the kitchen table. “Hey.”

“Where have you been?”

“Laundry,” Heather says shifting her basket onto her hip and starting down the hall. Then she pauses, glances back at Anita. “Since when do you wanna know where I’ve been?”

Anita just shrugs, looking off to where the light from the hallway blades through the kitchen blinds, casting shadows across the tile. “You just seem upset lately. Is all.”

Heather sniffles. “Just end of semester stuff, you know.”

Anita nods, turning back to her room before she stops herself, narrowing her eyes. “Have you been crying?”

“Nah.” Heather fights the urge to wipe at her cheeks.

Anita purses her lips, taps her palm once against the door frame, then shrugs. “Okay. Um, well, goodnight.”

“Sleep good.”

She’s mired in a haze of half sleep when she hears him through the wall. Or thinks she hears him. The sound of a door opening. Then quiet talking just across the room. No, it’s him. Definitely him. That low rasp unmistakable. And then a woman’s voice. A short, high laugh. Too low for her to make out what they’re saying. And a feeling she can’t really identify settles inside of her. Heather wonders if it’s the same woman or a new one. Wonders what he does for a living. Why the hell he’s moved here. And then she hears the bed creak through the wall, feels the almost microscopic shift of two people settling on the mattress and her mind goes blank. She hears the bed frame knock against the wall just once and realizes that their beds must be in the same spot. Pillow to pillow, like a mirror.

And then she hears a moan. A sort of soft mewling that quickly changes pitch, rises higher. She hears his name and _god_ and _oh fuck_ but she can’t feel the bed moving and Heather realizes, almost with a jolt, that Negan isn’t fucking this woman. That he’s trying to make her cum. Heather stifles a groan with her hand. She bets he’s eating her out, doesn’t know why but can picture it clear as day, and for the first time in, god, maybe a whole year, Heather feels a bolt of heat inside of her. Like she wants to be touched, wants to touch. She closes her eyes and tries to imagine how his beard would feel on the sensitive skin of her thighs. She imagines him grinning against the center of her, imagines his hot tongue. She wonders if he’s as quick with it as she thinks he might be and without even realizing what she’s doing, slips her hands down between her legs. She’d bet he’s sloppy, messy, ravenous. She’s so wet the apex of her thighs are sticky, can’t remember the last time she was this wet, can’t remember if she was _ever_ this wet. She swirls her finger along herself, something erotic about her own body now, about the way she’s worked herself up like this. Heather softens the pads of her fingers against her clit like she’s trying to approximate his tongue. Her hips rock down toward her hand at the thought. Of his tongue, his lips, his teeth. She’s never done this before, specifically this. She fantasizes most often about getting fucked. On her hands and knees so she doesn’t have to look, so she can slide her hand between her legs, sort her own self out. But as the moans from across the wall start to pitch up, she finds herself imagining looking down at him between her legs. His fingers dug into the bones of her hips, lapping at her, eyes locked on hers. Heather churns against her own hand, listening to the woman across the wall from her. She sounds nothing like Heather’s usual high-pitched, grating fakes. This is almost guttural, desperate. This is a woman getting _fucked._

Heather flips over, slips two fingers inside herself, rocking back onto them. She thinks of his long fingers. Carding through his hair. Wrapped around that apple. Inside of her. “Fuck.” Heather whispers, thrusting back hard against her fingers. He’d called her baby girl in the laundromat and she imagines him now rasping it in her ear. And then she hears him, muffled by the wall. “What a good fucking girl you are. Such a good fucking girl.” And she cums. Just like that. Almost a surprise. The sensation so sudden and so intense that she doesn’t even think to stifle her loud moaning, Across the wall, they fall silent, and Heather’s orgasm wanes with a sudden rush of humiliation. Her breath hot against the blank wall. She can feel her own livid blush, can feel the sticky insides of her thighs. The silence seems to grow, so dense all she can hear is her own breathing. Then his voice comes again through the wall. “Fucking look at you.” The woman starts to moan again, breathier now, almost clipped. “How many fingers you think I can fit in this pussy, huh? How much can you fucking take?” Heather shifts onto her back, staring at the ceiling, the back of her hand against her lips. The woman cries out, shouts his name. “Atta girl. Atta fucking girl.” Heather takes a long breath, then snakes her hand again down between her legs. She’s wet, sensitive. _Needy_ like she can’t ever remember being. She imagines him on top of her. The smell of him. Faintly like leather, like cigarettes. She imagines those long fingers curling around her thighs. _Good girl, good fucking girl._ Heather bucks against her own hand. She never does this. Never fucks herself like this. Across the wall, the thrusting starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3 
> 
> Oh! I have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/EbabelN) now! Come chat with me!


	6. Chapter 6*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when California wasn’t on fire? Yeah me neither. Here’s hoping you get a little pleasure out of returning to a time when the air was breathable and fucking a semi-stranger wasn’t totally off the table.
> 
> Tw: graphic depiction of dub-con.

She didn’t say no. And he _did_ ask. In his way. In his smirking, somehow sheepish, manipulative ass way. _You like this, right?_ With his hand brushing up the hem of her dress. Like with all the time he spends thinking and writing and fucking orating about the crushing structures of Italian fascism, the quiet force over a population under the heavy thumb of a system within which they cannot escape, whittling and whittling away, he wouldn’t be like this. Or, at least, that he would know he was like this. You’d think that for a moment, maybe just one singular moment, he’d wonder about consent in a way that matters. Not just in the _Jacobin_ article he has pinned now to his twitter. _Consenting il Duce: Fascism and The Common Support of the People._ Funny, really. You’d think someone like that would give a shit about the way Heather has fallen so grimly silent as he pulls her dress up over her head. You think all that theory, theory, theory might engender a little praxis. He lifts her by her hips onto his desk, the corner of a book digging into her thigh. _Guess not._

“You look so hot today, god.” This would all be easier if he stopped talking and she almost tells him that but he’s on top of her now, too heavy, not minding his hands as he tries to steady himself, yanking some of her hair. “Fuck, I can’t wait to fuck you.” Heather cringes. He’s not good enough to make any of this hot. Any of this halting roughness, this almost juvenile dirty talk. His own awkward arrogance neutering any sort of appeal that his passable good looks might lend him. Did lend him, the first time she let him do this to her, when she’d still sort of wanted him to.

He’s fumbling too long with the zipper on his jeans, quietly cursing, his knee pressed hard into her thigh, pinching the skin. Heather stares at the ceiling, at the uneven coats of paint. His office smells like a microwave meal and she wonders, for the third time, why the fuck she hasn’t just gotten up and left. Mark pushes her panties aside and Heather figures that’s probably something he read in a novel once, something he thinks is hot in a sort of French film way. But the fabric’s digging into the crease of her hip and the angle of the way he’s pushed it aside makes it so his clumsy passes across her labia miss her clit entirely. And then he’s inside her. A thrust so quick and deep that she gasps. And he mistakes the gasp for a moan, slotting his fingers with hers. He holds then too tightly, her knuckles mashing with his.

It stings. The way he’s fucking her. Like a blister, a rug burn. Like every unpleasant thing she can think of and as his thrusts become more erratic her thoughts wander to other unpleasant things. Like the pink she’ll find on the toilet paper when she retreats inevitably to that horrible bathroom, or how the people passing in the hall can most definitely hear, at the very least, the way the desk is creaking under them. Like how the hell is this even comfortable for him, her dry like this? Like what might happen if the condom breaks, like if he’s doing this to anyone else. Tries to decide, his body too close and heavy, his breath hot, if that would be worse or better.

Heather lays her head down, suddenly aware that she’d been craning her neck up, whole body tense. She looks to one side, cheek pressed against a stack of papers, and finds herself face to face with his girlfriend. A framed picture of her at least, smiling at a table, glass in her hand sweating. Not unlike the picture he’d posted to his twitter just days ago. They’re in Italy or Spain or some other sunbaked coastal European town. Heather wonders if this is how he fucks his girlfriend or if they do it in the dark or under the covers or not at all. Mark grunts over her. She wonders what he thinks her silence means.

“This is fun.” He says, a little too breathless for the weak show he just put on, pulling his slacks up over his hips. He winks. “This is naughty.” Heather sits up, adjusts her dress. She doesn’t feel like crying, not like she had before. She just feels like she wants a shower.

More than a shower, she decides, as she scrounges for change at the bottom her purse, the fluorescent hum of the corner store’s overhead lights buzzing overhead. She needs to extricate this feeling from her, she decides, as she counts out the change under the cashier’s watchful, skeptical eye. She feels covered in a thin film of him, a residue that makes her feel like she wants to crawl out of her own skin, leave it sloughed off in the street. And it’s that train of thought, as she heads down the sidewalk, the warm light of evening spilling onto the sidewalk, that takes her to the next. It might be nice, she decides, cracking open the off-brand energy drink she found at the back of the corner store’s fridge, to be fucked by someone else. To really wash him out of her system. To let the low-grade terror of fucking someone new flush out every other bad feeling that’s been churning inside of her for, fuck, like weeks. It’s dumb, honestly. Like the kind of reckless shit that got her into this in the first place. And besides, it doesn’t even seem plausible as something she could do tonight. Who would she even fuck? And she’s going through a plausible list, of people that she likes enough to sleep with but not enough to be afraid to ask, of people that don’t work in academia, that won’t show up on campus, that she won’t have to dodge for weeks afterward, when it dawns on her. She stops at the top of the hall stairs, takes a last swig of her energy drink, and glances at the neighbor’s door. Negan. She’s never heard a name like that in her life. Cannot even begin to figure out where it might come from. Figures it probably doesn’t matter. Handsome men can get away with most anything, And he _is_ handsome. Remembers the sun on his bare chest out on the balcony. And an asshole. Which is what she wants honestly. An out and out asshole. No pretense. Nothing like that. A horny bastard but at least an honest one. He probably fucks rough. Will probably jackhammer her into the mattress so hard it won’t leave any room inside her for anything else.

Negan answers on the second knock. Comes to the door with a whiskey in hand, that same swagger she’d noticed at the laundromat as he bumps his hip against the frame. White t-shirt, jeans. It looks like he’s just thrown the shirt on to answer the door, some of the fabric bunched up on one hip, revealing the curve of his muscles down toward the belt of his jeans. He cocks an eyebrow, grins. “Well, hello.”

Heather swallows. If she’d tried to do this half an hour ago, when she was still coasting on the bright energy of her own impulse, it would be easier than it is now, everything cast in a light that seems almost hyperreal. Worry edges around her thoughts, dread. She tries not to let it. “Are you alone?”

One side of his mouth ticks up. He cocks his head. “Trying to rob me?”

“Not today.” He chuckles. It’s an easy sound. Heady too. There’s something about it, the way his adams apple bobs as he swallows a pull of whiskey. She wants him. And she can’t remember the last time she wanted someone and that hot, heady feeling is enough to drown out the voice in her head howling about what a bad idea this is, one of many, one not at all unlike the thing that she’s here to run from. “Can I come in?”

She sees a glint in his eyes, his jaw set a little tighter. “What for?”

“To fuck.”

He blinks at her, runs his tongue over his teeth, purses his lips. He looks genuinely surprised and she doesn’t imagine he’s a man who feels that way often. But the surprise passes quickly. He leans down, voice all gravel. “Oh.” His smile widens, revealing the neat row of his teeth. “That all?” She looks up at him through her lashes. This close she can swell the sweat on his skin. Musk. Her heart slips up into her throat, pounds away. He beats his palm once against the doorframe, leaning back, tongue catching between his teeth. “Well alright then, baby girl. You won’t ever find me turning down an offer like that.”

The apartment’s neater than she expects. Almost sparse. But what he does have gives her a pretty clear idea of him. A lot of dark leather, a lot of chrome. Bachelor shit, honestly. A record player in the corner with a neat pile of vinyl beside it. Boomer shit too, solidifying her hunch that he’s probably mid-fifties. The door clicks shut behind her and she feels him snake his arm around her waist, hot breath at the crown of her head. “I won’t lie, I was hoping to get a little taste of this.” She’s not surprised it’s this easy. Not with the way he’d been flirting, but it’s still always surreal, that someone wants to fuck, that fucking is something anyone does at all. He squeezes her side. “’Specially with that pretty shit I heard come out of your mouth a few days ago.” She stiffens, cheeks heating. He chuckles, kissing behind her ear, his free hand splayed out along her thigh. “Think I wouldn’t notice, huh? The sound of you knuckle deep on the other side of the wall. Fucking yourself.” He nips at her ear. “Were you thinking of me?” It’s easy to press herself back against him, to grab hold, to pitch her voice up when she tells him yes. Heather can feel herself receding back into herself, opening her body up, shutting her thoughts down. Almost routine. His tightens his grip, pressing his lips to her neck, the hand on her thigh sliding up, fingering the hem of her dress. “God _damn,_ I beat myself off something fierce thinking about you like that.” It comes out on a growl and it’s so crass, so unashamedly fucking lustful that Heather comes slamming back into herself, can feel every inch of his skin on her skin. Every protective layer she’d sheathed herself in falling suddenly, sharply away. She tries to shore them back up but he’s turning her to face him before she can even think. And then he’s kissing her, fingers at her jaw, mouth hot on hers and it’s so shocking, so completely outside of what she imagined that she doesn’t move until, pulling away just a little, smirk still on his face, he says “you can kiss me, doll.” And she does, like maybe she’s never kissed anybody in her life. Caught right at the intersection of self-loathing and desperation, she kisses him like she wants to eat him. Her hands on his face, the back of his neck. He nips at her, one hand squeezing her ass, the other cradling her back, pulling her closer to him.

This isn’t what she expected. On her back like this, legs spread, dress pushed up just above her tits. Her nipples puffy from his tongue, his teeth. And a pressure between her hips that is barreling down on her. Almost too much. She’s never been like this. This splayed out, this open. Not with another person. Barely even with herself. If she had the space to think about it, it would overwhelm her. But she doesn’t. Negan squeezes her thigh; they make eye contact. He’s kneeling at the end of the bed, her legs over his shoulders. Heather’s eyes flutter, another bolt of heat, and she lets her head fall back onto the pillow, lets him work her. And he’s good at it, tongue across her clit, writing a novel with the way he’s moving it. Alternating pressure, tempo. Like he could do this forever, like he might never let up. Her legs have started to shake. He swirls his thumb just below, not pressing inside, just sensation, building and building and building. Heather reaches up, grabs hold of the bedframe, churns her hips down toward him. And that must do something to him, the way she’s moving, because he doubles down. Negan takes her clit between his lips and she cries out, arching her back, finger grasping at nothing. He releases her, runs his tongue up the seam of her and then, with that smirk still intact, leans a little back, worries his teeth on a soft spot beside her knee. “Goddamn, this pussy’s sweet.” Heather shudders, letting her head fall back onto the pillow. The ceiling’s one solid coat of paint, a wooden ceiling fan blades above them, dry air buffeting across her skin. Negan rocks back and pulls his shirt over his head. Heather looks down between her legs at him, at the evening light as it skitters across the tanned skin of his shoulders. Negan run his hand up her thigh. “You doing alright, sweet thing?” Her yes comes out breathless, one hand resting over her eyes, like she’s verklempt, like she might just die. She flinches when he runs his thumb over her clit., the sensation almost too sharp. “Sensitive little thing, huh? Ready to cum.” He chuckles. Heather hears him shift toward the bed, feels his breath between her legs. “I’m a gentleman.” He runs his tongue across her clit, just once. “I won’t make you wait.”

She can’t remember if a man’s made her come before. Maybe once or twice. Accidentally. Incidentally. Never like this. Never with her toes curling, back arched, babbling fucking nonsense. And she’s so wet. Embarassingly wet. She can see it on his beard when he sits back up, looking unashamedly self-satisfied. And maybe he deserves to be, her thighs still shaking when he runs his hands up them. Then back down, his hand finds her again. He slips a finger inside her, just one, thrusting soft and slow. “You want me to fuck this pussy, baby girl.” Heather exhales, lets her hands fall limp on either side of her head. She waits for him to fuck her. Waits and waits and then feels him climb up. He takes hold of her jaw. “You think I’m some kind of mind reader? You want me to fuck this pussy or not?”

There’s a way that he eases her down onto him, almost carefully, thumb brushing circles along her clit, that makes her feel…emotional maybe. Which isn’t what she’s looking for. Isn’t even in the ballpark of what she wants. But the feeling doesn’t last. He doesn’t let it. When he’s seated inside of her, he smooths his hands up her flank, grabs hold of her hips. And then Negan fucks her like he wants to break her. Fucks her so hard her tits bounce, her hair flies. She can’t hold onto him, can’t keep her hands on his chest with how fast and hard he’s fucking her. She threads her fingers through her hair, tries to keep herself upright, lets the wave of filth coming out of his mouth wash over her. She’s a _good girl, such a fucking good girl._ She’s _hot_ and _wet_ and _the tightest fucking pussy I’ve ever fucked._ And she feels like he’s going to shatter her, like all she wants is for him to shatter her. Then scatter her pieces off the balcony. She dreams of destruction, lets the way he’s fucking her feel like part of that, an integral piece. He moans her name, thrusts hard up into her, and when he cums he sits up, takes her face in one hand, their eyes locked. When he cums, he practically snarls. 

She watches him as he stands, as he cracks his neck, stretches his arms over his head, the muscles in his back flexing. And it feels right that he’s gotten out of bed, searching now for his pants. It feels right that he’s left her alone, naked. It’s done. She can let it go, try not to think about Mark or him or anyone. But then, as she’s reaching across the sheets for her dress, Negan looks over his shoulder at her. He chuckles, turns, his cock softening against his thigh. And then he leans down and kisses her. And it’s soft, almost sweet, and it’s the sweetness that breaks her in two. She can feel it, inside herself, like a dam cracking. Too much, too close. The tears come even though she doesn’t want them. Negan tenses, leans down so their eyes are level. “What the hell. What the hell’s gotten into you?” He takes hold of her chin, forces her to look up. “Hey. Hey! Did I do some shit you didn’t like? Because you gotta pipe the fuck up if I’m hurting ya.”

Heather recoils from him, wiping furiously at her cheeks. “No, no. It’s fine. I just…it’s fine. It was good.”

“Yeah it was good? Seems like it was fucking good.”

Heather hiccups, sure now that she’s red all over. “Sorry. I’m just...”

“Here.” He tosses her dress to her. “Let me get you something to drink. You look like a mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


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